The Environment Agency said it intended to invite applications for new permits from operators of existing onshore oil and gas facilities that did not previously require to be permitted.

It expected the project would run until March 2018. In the meantime, it would not take enforcement action against operators for not having the necessary permits provided they met conditions in the position statement.

Doe Green, a former IGas site at Warrington, now operated by INEOS Shale, is currently going through the application process. Details

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The Environment Agency should put these applications online. It is unacceptable in this digital age that people must travel long distances to view such documents. If the local authorities can do so, why can’t the EA?

In the case of the Springs Road application, the LOCAL people would have had to make a 3 hour round trip to view the documents at the EA office. It isn’t Rocket Science to make access easy and freely available. So why aren’t they doing so?

If there is a planning application that concerns me in my Parish, and I have some interest in it, I go and view the documents when they are exhibited. I do not see that is a real problem.
I suspect this is more a case of wanting to try and pick holes in something without making too much of an effort, or being too involved in the location.
It seems to be the standard approach, but for locals who have lived next to such premises for many years, and in my case, observing and experiencing no problems, it will backfire.

Martin Collyer I am not following your line of thinking here. Who is trying to pick holes and in what? Who is lacking in effort or too involved in the location? What will backfire? Please be more specific.

Sorry you can not follow Jayne. Let me put it simply. If you have at any time to obtain Probate you will find that unless you want to pay your local solicitor you actually have to go to the Probate Office and swear an oath, ie. you are expected to make an effort for some things.
What will backfire is the constant willingness of the anti. brigade to spend a great deal of effort criticising process, trying to “infiltrate” local meetings held by commercial concerns in order to try and undermine the message, activities such as slow walking and climbing on vehicles or attaching themselves to them, having their “friends” labelled as pedalling untruths in the national media (that might be edited, but the actual text was more damning than that) and now under police investigation for claims of intimidation.

Remember one fact you will find in most books about how to sell. Avoid even talking about the competition, your job is to sell YOUR product. As soon as you fall into that trap your audience will very quickly decide you did so because YOUR product is no good.

I am still not sure of how you got to this point. I merely made a comment about the EA not publishing details for the applications on their website. This would be open and transparent and facilitate public access to documentation relating to developments that will have an impact on their local community. Now you are talking about Probate, anti-fracking infiltration of meetings, direct action and product promotion.

NOT developments that will have an impact on their local community, Jayne. You do seem to be missing a point. I feel we will just have to accept that the point you want to make out of this is very different to the point I am making.

This whole exercise is to simply bring the older facilities into the same permit regulations that have been utilised for the newer ones. It is quite clear within the text above. Why on earth should this have “an impact on their local community”? The local communities have been existing alongside these facilities for many years, and many locals will not know they were there and the rest (in my locality) will find they have been less intrusive than a small housing development. The only modification I could envisage from such action would be for the EA to indicate that past practice needs improving, but your default position seems to immediately criticise the process. There is no change of existing use, such would need a separate application.

It’s called “direct action” now is it, Jayne? I call it, having lost the argument.

This is a none story as you have rightly pointed out Martin. Bringing a few existing sites up to current regs / standards. No fracking, no new conventional, no new shale no new anything. What is there to comment on. Let the EA do their job. My car will need it’s first MOT soon, shall we run a story on this?

I think it is worth noting that IGas looks very much like it is going to be going into receivership soon. It has admitted it will be breaking its covenants this quarter and the share price has fallen sharply. The bonds are trading well below par implying no confidence in their ability to continue to service their debt.